SEOUL (SOUTH KOREA) – The popular Boryeong Mud Festival, was suspended this year because of COVID-19. However, it became an online celebration of soil, with people from around the country indulging in mud pools and putting on their mud packs in their homes. The visuals of the dirty results were streamed online later.
The annual mud extravaganza is South Korea’s most popular festival, when it comes to international visitors. Usually, people go to the beach and take part in activities such as mud slides, mud wrestling and other revelries.
This year, however, the city set up a large screen in a studio streaming images of umpteen number of people. They all had mud kits consisting of a mini-pool, mud packs, mud soaps and colourful mud powders.
Smeared using blue, red and yellow mud powders, people watched singers perform online.
10-year-old Han Chae-yoon, sitting in a mini-pool in her living room, her face and body covered with mud, “I was sad that I wasn’t able to go to the Boryeong Mud Festival, but it is great that my Mom made a mud pool,” said.
Her mother Kim young-ah told, “My home gets dirty, but the children enjoy it and I am happy for that.”
Around 3,000 people, including K-pop fans from overseas, watched the live event on YouTube.
The festival was introduced by Boryeong launchedon Daecheon Beach in 1998 to energise a local economy hit by the Asian financial crisis. The event promoted mud-based cosmetics.
(Photos syndicated via Reuters)
This story has been edited by BH staff and is published from a syndicated field.